11 “Bad Habits” That Are Perfectly Good for You (according to science) – BioTrust Radio #37

Whether you’re a breakfast skipper, coffee aficionado, social media junkie, enjoy an occasional adult beverage, like to take naps, or go against the grain (pun intended) and eat gluten, believe it or not, science is on your side. That’s right, the myth busters are back! In this episode of the BioTrust Radio podcast, Shawn and Tim lay down the scientific law and tell you why 11 so-called bad habits can actually be very good and healthy for you. Enjoy!

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Will Durant

In this episode of BioTrust Radio, Shawn and Tim reveal a list of 11 bad habits that may actually be healthy — that’s what science says anyway. That’s right, there’s no shame in these science-backed tools when they’re used strategically. Here’s a brief summary of the bad habits they’ll discuss and what you can expect to take away from the show:

#1 of 11 Bad Habits: Skipping Breakfast. Despite being told that breakfast is the “most important meal of the day,” it is not mandatory — at least in the traditional sense. Randomized controlled trials show little difference between breakfast eaters vs. breakfast skippers, and new research on time-restricted feeding (i.e., intermittent fasting) suggests that some people may benefit from skipping traditional breakfast. In the grand scheme of things, it’s about diet quality and finding what works best for you.

#2 of 11 Bad Habits: Drinking Coffee. In general, regular coffee consumption is associated with numerous health benefits, including reduced risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, certain types of cancer, and more. Coffee is packed with antioxidants and even contains some vitamins and minerals. With most things, be mindful of your caffeine tolerance and how/why you’re using (or abusing) coffee.

#5 of 11 Bad Habits: Using Social Media. Social media isn’t inherently negative or bad. It’s a tool, and it depends on your relationship with it and how you use it. When used in a healthy way, it can be a useful tool to help keep you connected and informed.

#6 of 11 Bad Habits: Grabbing an Energy Drink. Drinking the occasional natural energy drink that’s not loaded with sugar or artificial ingredients isn’t necessarily a bad habit. Again, it comes down to what you’re choosing to put in your body and why.

#8 of 11 Bad Habits: Having Your Notifications Turned On. Constantly being peppered with notifications can be distracting, and along those lines, this can indeed be classified as one of those counterproductive bad habits. But if you can use this feature to your advantage, it may make you more focused on the task at had and ultimately more productive.

#10 of 11 Bad Habits: Eating Gluten. While there is no question that non-celiac gluten sensitivity is a real issue, research shows that it’s prevalence is only about 3 – 5% — which is MUCH lower than what people tend to self-report. While avoiding gluten can improve diet quality (e.g., eating fewer processed foods made with/from wheat), eliminating gluten can be unnecessarily restrictive (e.g., avoiding/limiting social situations) and contribute to nutrient deficiencies (i.e., minimally processed whole grains containing gluten also provide various essential nutrients).

Transcript – 11 “Bad Habits” That Are Perfectly Good for You

Shawn:Hello, BioTrust Nation. We are back. This is Shawn Wells with Timothy Skwiat.

Tim:it’s kind of cool to introduce yourself like that.

Shawn:Yes, so it is Shawn and Tim and we’re here for another BioTrust Radio. We’re glad that you’re here listening. And we have really cool topics. So we chose two lists because lists seem to be kind of hot with us. Not just us, but with you guys, too. And we have 11 Bad Habits that are Actually Healthy, according to science. And then we’ll have on another episode, a flipside of that, healthy habits that are actually bad for you. So I think these are kind of fun to go through for us, and fun for you to listen to. And we’d, of course, love your feedback, as always.

We’ve done some good lists in the past, like 11 Habits to a Healthier You. And we’ve done some other ones recently that I’ve been proud of, like the suicide episode. Tim and I felt like that one was just on our hearts and we got pretty real on that one. And it was actually before the Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade situation, with them taking their own lives, and we put it out before that actually happened. It just happened to be out the same week that happened. So, we weren’t cashing in. We weren’t trying to leverage it in a certain way. It was just literally on our hearts.

So, we try and do a variety of things. Of course we talk about paleo and keto and dieting, and all kinds of things like that. And we know those are those are popular too, but I think mental health is just—we’ve talked about it over and over—that everything kind of goes back to mental health. Can you stick with it? Can you reframe? Can you adjust? Can you see this in a positive light? Can you communicate with people in a positive, endearing way, and all those kinds of things? Everything is just communication to others and communication to yourself, and I think that’s pretty key don’t you think, Tim?

Tim:I totally agree with that, Shawn. And I think another thing to highlight there is that—again, you probably heard this before, we probably said it before—these things are all interconnected. We’re giving lists, like it’s these are bad habits or this food or that food. But these things all work together in synergy, right? The mental being is closely connected to the emotional being, and the spiritual being and the physical being.

On my way up here today, I was just reading a study about how diet can literally improve mood, lower depression scores, and also along those same lines, you talked about communication. We’ve talked about this many times before, how important our connection to community and the tribe is, and happiness. The Harvard Happiness Study, how that was the connections with a social community, and the Blue Zones how those things are also important. So, there’s just so many pieces of this puzzle. And even though there’s lists of good and bad habits or good and bad foods, there’s no one single habit, there’s no one single thing that’s going to make or break it for everyone, but maybe that’s just one more piece or one more feather that you need to add to your cap so to speak. I like the list because it’s also helping us decide what’s the next best step for us. What’s the low hanging fruit that I can grab to take that next step in my journey? Because like you and I talk about all the time, we’re on a journey too.

Shawn:Yeah

Tim:We’re still telling our story. We’re still writing our story and all these things. It’s not over. We’re not perfect. We’re making strides every single day, to improve ourselves, and as a corollary to that, help others as well.

Shawn:I love that, Tim. Well let’s get in.

Tim:I love you, man.

Shawn:Oh, thank you. Thank you. And we love the BioTrust Nation listeners. So, let’s get into the 11 Bad Habits that are Actually Healthy, according to science. Now, we may not agree with all these—of course—but I think it’ll be fun to go through.

So, No. 1 on the list of so-called bad habits is skipping breakfast. Breakfast is not mandatory, despite what you’ve heard. Now, we’ve all heard that it’s the most important meal of the day, don’t skip your breakfast. And of course, but now we’re hearing about intermittent fasting, time‑restricted feeding. Of course, we actually had a recent episode on that. And so, actually skipping meals may not be so bad. Now, the question is which one should you skip? It’s easiest to probably skip breakfast, for most people, just because they’re in a hurry, they’ve already been fasting through the night, which is just sleep. But maybe we’ve talked about with some new data, Satchin Panda, that maybe it might be better to skip dinner.

Here’s the thing. According to what you just said with relationships being so key, take that for what it is. It’s probably not the best thing for your circadian rhythm, which are like the body clocks, to potentially eat when it’s dark. It’s probably better to set your circadian rhythm, your body clock, by eating when it’s light. So, it wouldn’t be the worst thing if you eat at breakfast but skip dinner. But, if dinner is the time that you’re with friends and family and you’re interacting, you’re having deep social connections and you’re enjoying life, then I wouldn’t say skip dinner.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:And I would say skip breakfast. And that is easy to tack that on to your sleep that you’ve already had. So if you’re going to do that, some people do 16 and 8. That’s probably the easiest place to start for intermittent fasting. So that would be, let’s say you slept 8 hours and maybe with dinner, let’s say you ate it like 6:00 or 6:30. You stop eating by 7:00 p.m. You get up at 6:00 a.m., so you’ve already gone 11 hour and you just need to cruise through 5 more hours.

So, you can start eating at 11:00-12:00, like normal lunchtime, and then you have an 8 hour window. And again, it’s okay if you want like a midday snack then and you want to have dinner. It’s not about not having food during that window. You can just eat what’s called “ad libitum” (as you want) during that window. The biggest thing is can you fast during that non-eating window? And in time, you’ll find that you’re eating less during your window of eating. But you don’t have to force non‑eating during that window.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:It just kind of happens naturally. So, I would say, if anyone’s doing that just eat how you want to eat. Obviously try and eat healthy, but I eat as much as you want.

Tim:Just to tack onto that briefly, Shawn.

Shawn: Sure.

Tim: I mean, the kind of the crux of this for me is that randomized controlled trials, studies actually compare people who skip breakfast to people that eat breakfast. There’s really no difference in terms of weight management, so to speak. So, it’s not really that most important meal of the day that we’ve always been told, necessarily, from a weight-loss standpoint, for everyone. They take people that are normal breakfast eaters and they have them skip breakfast. They take people who normally skip breakfast and have them eat breakfast. It usually works out for both groups, about the same.

So basically, if you’re the type that doesn’t feel hungry, doesn’t need to eat breakfast, don’t eat. You don’t need to, necessarily. Don’t buy into it. However, if that leads you to be super hungry and make poor food choices subsequently, then maybe it is a good idea to eat breakfast, and in that sense, skipping breakfast does seem to be one of those bad habits.

Shawn:Yeah.

Tim:And kind of along those same lines, one population that should probably eat breakfast is younger people. I know we’re not talking to teenagers, necessarily. That’s not our core listener demographic. But the research is pretty clear that kids should be eating breakfast. And Heather Leidy, out of the University of Missouri, has done a lot of research on girls. Teenage girls, when they eat breakfast, particularly a higher-protein breakfast, they tend to improve their overall diet quality and a lot of variables from there. So, that’s one thing.

And just to kind of tack on to the time-restricted feeding that you talked about, and we can link to some of the other things in the show notes, but you had just sent me a study that Satchin Panda’s group actually did, and they did a time-restricted feeding. And basically, what they did was they moved people’s breakfast back (their first meal) about an hour-and-a-half and they move people’s dinner up about an hour-and-a-half to get to that 16 and 8; 16 hours of fasting and 8 hours of feeding. So, instead of eating breakfast at 8:30, they ate at 10:00 a.m. Instead of eating dinner at 7:30, or their snack probably—more likely the last little feeding of the day at 7:30—they stopped eating at 6:00 p.m. I thought that was a very practical way of implementing time-restricted feeding. And that group lost a significant amount of weight during the 12-week trial. So, it was a pretty cool study.

Shawn:That also works with circadian rhythm, that we were just talking about, too.

Tim:Right, exactly. So, I thought that was a pretty cool practical way. And even if that’s something that you’re doing, something that you’re practicing is some intermittent fasting, if you want to have breakfast on Sunday with your family or something like that, do it. It doesn’t have to be like that rigid all the time. It’s just kind of some general guidelines.

And it also depends what you really want to get out of fasting. If you’re using it solely as a weight management tool, then it’s probably just comes back to controlling the amount of energy that you’re consuming, and so doing the best you can to restrict that that window is probably what’s most effective there.

Shawn:And there is data to your point, with studies, that show eating a high-fat meal that’s low carb, or even a high protein meal that’s low carb, there’s been different studies doing both that show that it regulates appetite better. You are less likely to snack, less likely to have blood sugar fluctuations, and all those kinds of things. Because a lot of people start out their morning with croissants and bagels and Pop-Tarts, and Monster energy drinks and sugary Starbucks, and sugar cereal and all the stuff. It’s the worst way to start your day, really, and you start your day in kind of a downward spiral with sugar. And then you’re crashing and you need more caffeine, or you need more sugar, and you end up in the cycle. And that’s what most people do all day long, “I need more caffeine. I need more sugar. I need more caffeine. I need more sugar,” because they’re just bottoming out, and bottom, and bottoming out.

Tim:Yeah.

Shawn:So, if you can do a protein shake or you can do something that’s high fat, like having black coffee with heavy cream and some kind of natural sweetener if you need it. But something like that, where you’re just having fat or you’re just having protein, you’re going to be much more satiated and much more balanced, if you need breakfast, and you’ll feel better throughout the day.

Tim:It’s a super point.

Shawn:Actually, the next one on the list of bad habits fits in very well, drinking coffee.

Tim:Yeah. If you don’t mind, I’m just going to take the podium for a second. There’s probably a number of reasons why, but it seems like coffee gets such a bad rap and is often listed as one of those bad habits. In fact, I remember when I was a trainer and people would come in more times than I can count and say, “I’m ready. I’m committed to living a healthier life. And first thing I’m going to do is cut out coffee.” And I’m like, “Oh, why?” And I get it. Because like you said, a lot of people rely on caffeine, energy drinks, and things like that, instead of establishing healthy sleep hygiene habits and all those kinds of things. And that makes sense to me.

But I mean, there’s copious amounts of data, like meta-analysis, systematic reviews that show that, in general, regular coffee consumption is healthy. It’s particularly healthy for liver health. Also heart health, glycemic control, and many things. A lot of positive associations there. So, in fact, coffee is packed with antioxidants. For many populations around the world, [chuckles] coffee is the most abundant source of dietary antioxidants. That’s probably a sign that most people aren’t eating enough fruits and vegetables, but it is. And caffeine, in fact, is an antioxidant. Even though caffeine has a negative connotation to it, but there’s compounds in coffee as well, chlorogenic acid, for instance, that has health benefits.

So, in general, coffee is quite beneficial for a variety of health parameters. And I’ll link to an article that I wrote on coffee in the show notes as well, as some citations, to back that up. But just like there’s nothing really that’s across-the-board healthy for everyone, right? And so caffeine is one of those things—and I hope that you can speak to this a little bit more—that some people are more sensitive to it than others. So, for people that may be slower metabolizers of caffeine, the costs may outweigh the benefits of coffee.

Because most of the benefits associated with coffee consumption are typically in the area of about 3 to 5 cups per day, and that’s roughly 18 to 30 ounces of coffee. A cup of coffee is 6 ounces, [chuckles] not 12 or 16 ounces, like what we might want to believe. And so, for someone who’s a slow metabolizer of caffeine, the jitters and the anxiety that might come from that caffeine lingering or lack of sleep, may way offset the potential benefits. So like everything else, you have to see how your body responds. But in general, for someone who’s not sensitive to caffeine, coffee is probably a healthy thing.

Shawn:Yeah, I would agree. I am more sensitive to caffeine. I’m actually having a little bit this morning and normally I don’t have any.

Tim:He’s fired up.

Shawn:[laughs] But, yeah, I have it on occasion, but it has to be extremely early and it has to be a small dose. But I would agree, I think you do have to be cognizant of the amount of caffeine. Even for someone who can consume caffeine fairly well, some of these turbo coffees [chuckles] and quadruple espressos and whatever, kind of get out of hand and you can become physiologically dependent on that. Then you literally habituate to the caffeine and you need that level of caffeine to get to baseline. And you do see people be dependent like that and they literally can’t function in the morning without it. But I would agree, I think a healthy coffee, tea, these things that do contain caffeine, have good compounds in them. Like tea there’s EGCG, there’s the theanine that takes some of the edge off the caffeine.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:And same with coffee. There’s some compounds in it that they kind of take the edge off the caffeine a little bit. And then the chlorogenic acid, like you mentioned, is good for blood sugar control and appetite. So, there’s a lot of things, like polyphenols, that are in the tea and the coffee, are extremely healthy as antioxidants, like you said. So, yeah, I think coffee isn’t necessarily a bad thing. And certainly there’s a lot of good data on it being healthy.

Tim:Just one more thing to tack on and that, Shawn, is I think one thing I failed to mention there is that the vehicle that the coffee comes in. You mentioned this. But a lot of people aren’t drinking just black coffee, right?

Shawn:Good point.

Tim:A lot of people are ordering the espresso drinks with a lot of added sugars. And like you and I’ve talked about, there’s nothing wrong with adding some cream to your coffee.

Shawn:Right.

Tim:In fact, maybe some MCT and things like that, could be potentially even more advantageous or beneficial to cognitive health, appetite, and like things. But when you start adding a lot of calories and added things to your coffee, then again, the costs outweigh the benefits.

Shawn:Yeah, you don’t want to get into high glycemic carb and high fat, because then you’re cranking up fat storage, you’re inhibiting fat breakdown, lipolysis. You’re kind of sending yourself on that glycemic rollercoaster, and then you’re just crushing calories.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:So, I think it’s okay to be high fat/high calorie, as long as it’s without a bunch of sweetness.

Tim:Yeah.

Shawn:Because you feel full, and that’s good. So, I think that’s why so many people have success with kind of bulletproof-style coffee in the morning, where they can add collagen to it, but they add either grass-fed butter or they add heavy cream, and like you said, MCTs. Then they’re kind of zooming through the day, and they don’t want breakfast. Sometimes they even skip lunch. They’re just feeling so great.

Tim:That’s a great point about the caffeine, sans carbohydrate, because caffeine can also have an insulin-resistant type of effect, basically. But caffeine plus fat is nice because caffeine can actually increase the body’s utilization of fat. So, that seems like a really good combo.

Shawn:Thermogenic. Cool, so the number three on the list of the so-called bad habits is Eating Eggs. But eggs are high in cholesterol and fat.

Tim:[laughs]

Shawn:[laughs] Oh, no. Yeah, so this is one of those myths that thankfully is being destroyed. And we also know that you don’t get enough choline unless you’re eating eggs or taking a choline supplement, period. So, it’s important to eat your eggs. A lot of the nutrients, the health benefits are in the yolk.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:Really just the egg white is mostly just water and protein. So, when people do their little egg white omelets, I don’t really get that. I know it’s lower calorie and high protein, but you’re missing out on a lot of the great nutrition. And the whole cholesterol, gives you cholesterol issues, is dumb. Only about 10% of dietary cholesterol affects your actual endogenous in-the-body cholesterol. And the whole cholesterol thing is pretty much a myth for me. Higher cholesterol isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You just need to track VLDL, and not even LDL. LDL can be very healthy, despite what you’ve been told. Total cholesterol can be a very good thing, despite what you’ve been told. And cholesterol in food is a farce. I’ll just say that.

And fat and saturated fat are good things, as well. They were wrong about all that. We can look at the Mediterranean population, the Blue Zones. Some of these populations eat very high fat and they’re very healthy. We can only see that it’s the populations that are eating highly-processed food, ultra-processed foods that are unhealthy. And those are high glycemic carbohydrates; those are those are manufactured fats, like trans fats and some of these vegetable oils that are rancid and processed, like canola oil. It’s the degraded proteins that are near worthless. It’s all this stuff. And it’s the GMOs and it’s the antibiotics, and it’s the colors and the artificial sweeteners and preservatives. I mean, that’s the whole ultra-processed thing.

No one is going to become unhealthy or die by eating eggs, or pretty much whole food in general.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:If you’re eating whole food, you’re okay. Don’t listen to all these people that are saying, “This food’s bad, this food’s bad, this food’s bad.” If it’s whole food, I can tell you it’s pretty much good for you and it’s okay, especially if you’re eating a variety. But I’m a fan of eggs. They have just awesome nutrients, great protein, good fat, and you feel great on them. Almost all the studies that show where people eat eggs, they’re healthier, not less healthy.

Tim:Yeah.

Shawn:That whole thing has been squashed.

Tim:Yeah, not too much to add to that, Shawn, except for those folks that want to stick with their egg white omelets, just send your yolks to Shawn and me.

Shawn:Oh, that would be wonderful.

Tim:Shawn and me will take them. And we’ll be happy to leave the address here in the show notes. [laughs] I do want to add that the yolks, like you said, they’re packed with nutrients. And in fact, they’re one of the few foods that are rich in the carotenoids; lutein and zeaxanthin.

Shawn: Exactly.

Tim: They’re carotenoids, which are a phytochemical found in certain plants that are stored in the eye, and they protect your eyes from blue light. They’re very important also for skin health and they can affect a variety of other things too, including cognitive brain health. They increase a compound called “brain-derived neurotrophic factor,” which is fancy-pants for just like stuff that helps your brain work better.

Shawn:Uh-hm, yep, BDNF for the win. Which actually, some of the compounds in coffee, like that green coffee berry, there’s studies with that in increasing BDNF.

Tim:Yeah.

Shawn:So, this one.

Tim:I know you disagree with this next one of the list of bad habits wholeheartedly. [laughs]

Shawn:Bad habits number 4… Indulging in high-fat foods, so here we go. This is definitely good to roll into right after the eating eggs and oh my gosh, the cholesterol. So again, almost all the diets we’ve seen through the years, whether it’s been Atkins, Syndrome X, Mediterranean, even Eskimo-type diets and whatever. The higher the fat, it’s actually shown to improve heart health. And not surprisingly, the more fat you eat, the more fat you burn.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:Which should be kind of obvious that the thing that you’re consuming most, your body will figure out how to burn the most and use for fuel. So, if you’re consuming a ton of sugar, you’re a sugar burner. If you’re consuming a ton of fat, you’re a fat burner. Your body’s really confused when it’s eating sugar and fat. Because going back to the whole food point, that doesn’t really exist in nature. There aren’t fatty bananas.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:Like you get one or the other and this whole bliss point thing. You get one or the other. And this whole bliss point thing, you get somewhat of a bliss point with fat and you get somewhat of a bliss point with carbohydrate, but combining them is the reason why we like Oreos, why we like cake, why we like cookies, because they have that greasy mouthfeel. Like that that satiating sense that you get in your mouth that’s like “wow” and then you get sweet added to that and it lights up the brain. It’s addictive. But it doesn’t occur really in nature. So, eating high fat isn’t a bad thing.

And certainly I’m not saying like eating fruits and vegetables, like you don’t have to be keto. I would just recommend that you kind of eat one or the other at any given time. But I definitely think that eating high fat can be extremely healthy and we can go back to, like I said, I don’t see like a lot of animals keeling over from eating other animals or getting heart attacks or whatever. It’s our stress level, it’s our diet—diet meaning ultra-processed foods and fast foods—and it’s our lack of exercise. But it’s not the high-fat food. It’s never been the high-fat food, so frustrating to me.

Tim:Yeah, like you said Shawn, with the rise in popularity of things like paleo and keto, it’s finally coming to light that’s something that we’ve known for a while that the low-fat mantra is not dead, but we know that that’s not accurate, and all those things that it’s based on are not accurate or applicable to everyone. And it’s something that you had brought up before is that the type of fats that we consume matter. Like if we’re consuming those rancid, bleached, deodorized, RBD, vegetable oils, canola oil, soybean oil, corn oil, cottonseed, safflower, sunflower, and those types of oils which are found in those ultra-processed packaged foods. That’s completely different than eating a diet that’s rich in healthy fats from whole foods like eggs, coconuts, olives, and so on and so forth.

Shawn:Everyone thinks that fat, because we were always told to eat lean meat.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:Eating the fat on an animal is not bad. And we were always told that soybean oil and these vegetable oils are the healthy thing. Ironically, it’s not.

Tim:Yeah. And that’s an awesome point that you brought up. I meant to mention that, and the eggs also. But just to finish that point, the fats that we consume are giving us our body’s information. Our cell membranes in the body are made up of the dietary fats that we consume. So, if we’re consuming a bunch of those crappy vegetable oils, those fats are being integrated into our cell membranes and making them basically more susceptible to damage, inflammation, and things like that. And those fats also send chemical messages through inflammatory chemicals as well. So, important that the types of fats are extremely relevant to bring up.

And the type of things that the animals that we consume products from are fed, influenced their fatty acid profile. So, if cows or chickens, for instance, are being fed corn and soy, that significantly changes their fatty acid profile. Whereas, if they’re free to roam in the pastures and the birds are eating worms and grasses and seeds, or whatever chickens eat, and the cows are able to eat grass, their fatty acid profile is much more beneficial to us.

What’s more, cows that are fed grass are also going to build more of those carotenoids in their bodies. And where do they store them? They’re fat soluble compounds, so they’re stored in fat. So, if you were to look at a real grass-fed piece of meat, the fat might actually look a little yellow.

Shawn:Yeah.

Tim:And if you were going to look at a soy or grain-fed cow, the fat’s a little bit more white. You want the yellow fat.

Shawn:Right.

Tim:And so eat that fatty piece of meat.

Shawn:That’s awesome. Thank you. Great stuff, Tim. Man, how awesome is Tim. Woo! So, number 5 on the list of bad habits is a good one. We always see that the using social media. But we have, even a BioTrust here, we have social media. And of course Tim and I are on social media. So, is it a bad thing? I was listening to one of our recent episodes and we were talking about how Netflix can be a good thing, how TV can be a good thing, how the Internet can be a good thing. All these things that get demonized, they’re vehicles. It’s what you make of them.

I know with my social media, here’s one of the things I do. Like we’ve talked about batching, so you only check it a few times a day. The other thing I do is you can control what’s in your feed. So, some people are for me, like the highly political, highly religious. And not that politics or religion is a bad thing, but like people that are just very outspoken and opinionated and want to push that opinion on others in an inflammatory way can be one of the reasons that people don’t like social media and get agitated when they read it, and in an addictive way.

And I don’t think it’s healthy like when we watch reality shows. We watch highly editorial comments in social media that it can be healthy. So, for those people, I kind of delete them out of my feed. Even though I may be friends with them, I don’t want them in my feed constantly serving up negativity.

And then the other thing I do is kind of the reverse. Like with Facebook, for example, you can actually control your first 15. And I actually get like a number of science websites, inspirational websites, things like Jay Shetty, Goalcast. These guys are always talking about positive stuff. Then I put in, again, like a number of scientific journals so I can get the latest science. And then I’m just kind of rolling with my first 15 just being like super-positive or being super-informative things. And then I might be done after like a few scrolls and I might have to go get to something else. But that way, like when I’m doing my scrolling, I’m curating my feed in a very healthy way. And I think that’s really important.

Versus some people that say, “Well, I just know this person,” and, “Oh, what’s the drama? What’s the drama today?” All that stuff can be addictive, like these reality shows, the Kardashians, and all this stuff. And you can get addicted to negative thoughts. You can get addicted with the drama that’s going on, and I think that’s unhealthy. So, control what’s in your feed. And I think social media can be a good thing. You can connect with other people and you can care for other people. So, those people that are reaching out to you saying positive things, boost them up. Those people that are talking negative things, delete them out or silence them.

And it’s just what you have to do in your life. If you’re the product of the five people around you that are closest to you, think about what’s in your feed and control it. It’s just like Netflix. I could sit there and watch horror movies and stupid fart joke movies and whatever, or I can watch constructive things. And you might need something silly every now and then, but I can watch documentaries, I can watch things that are history pieces where I’m learning stuff and it’s great acting and it’s good people in it, and I’m taking something positive away from it. It’s what you make of it. Like these things aren’t inherently bad; it’s what you make of it.

Tim:Yeah, that’s a perfect point there, Shawn. It’s a tool, and it’s just how you use it. Just like anything. You talked about batching it. I like that. Turn off the push notifications so you’re not getting dinged all day long. Is it the first thing you’re doing when you wake up in the morning? Is that the last thing you’re doing before you go to bed at night? I guess a different way to think about it, what’s your relationship with social media? Would you consider it a healthy relationship and just kind of ask yourself some questions like that. But like to your point, batch it. Maybe if you can look at it during this period of time and that period of time. And like you said, we tend to be drawn toward negativity, but that doesn’t take us anywhere.

Shawn:Right.

Tim:And actually, I don’t really use social media a whole lot, personally, and this is the reason why. Because it became a form of procrastination. Like I would say before I get to this thing that’s actually really important I’m going to spend a few minutes and social media, and then it’s like okay I did all that and now I don’t have any time to do the things. And we’ll talk about productivity and stuff like that at some point but that’s just kind of examine your relationship with it and how you’re using that tool or abusing that tool.

Shawn:Yeah, I agree. And if you’re if you’re just using it because you’re bored, kind of like TV, like I was just talking about, you’re not making conscious decisions. If you’re saying a sporting event is something I want to watch or this specific movie or documentary is something I want to watch. I’m going to sit down and watch it with my significant other. I’m going to enjoy it. That’s a good thing. And if you say I’m going to get on social media at x time and I’m going to look at these articles, and I’m going to share. A lot of times I find my science articles. I read them and then I share them with other people, and I get positive feedback on them. And I love that. I think it’s a very positive and constructive thing. But if, like you said, if you’re just bored and it’s like the end of the night and instead of talking to your significant other or instead of journaling, or whatever, you’re just putting off things that you should be doing, probably not constructive.

Tim:Yeah.

Shawn:That’s where batching can come in handy, where you just get things done in batches. So, we’ll talk about that as well with productivity. But on to number 6 on the list of bad habits, grabbing an energy drink. It’s kind of controversial. What do you think about that one, Tim?

Tim:So, grabbing an energy drink, basically what this list is saying is that that’s not as bad as we’ve probably been told. There’s a lot of different “energy drinks” out there, and so it’s hard to speak to it in a general way. I can’t say that I fully agree that this is a healthy habit, unless I go back and say that energy drink is coffee or tea, [laughs] which we talked about before is probably healthier than we’ve been led to believe.

Shawn:Well, this one says that sugar-free Red Bull, which in the small can is 80 milligrams of caffeine, which is a third of the amount of a tall Starbucks drip coffee, which means that Starbucks drip coffee has 240. And it has B vitamins and taurine. So, they’re saying because it’s sugar-free and the caffeine isn’t that bad that it’s not the worst thing, and I would agree to some degree. Obviously, you can make the argument about artificial sweeteners and whatnot. But, I guess if it’s on occasion, and this is one of the energy drinks you reach for versus like the monster huge can of blue artificial color like high sugar, 300 milligrams of caffeine. There are some insane ones. Like the small can of sugar-free Red Bull, not the worst thing.

Tim:Yeah, and I would not berate anyone who makes that choice because I’m the type that’s going to have a cup of coffee instead. So, going back to what I said about your relationship with social media, if this is something you’re doing all the time, multiple times a day, what is that telling us? Are there other areas, like nutrition, sleep, or exercise, things that we might be able to improve? So again, how are you using this tool? What is this tool doing for you and just kind of examining. But like you said, if it’s not occasion, I like the taste of that and could use a little pick-me-up today, go for it.

Shawn:Right, yeah, totally agree. So number 7 on the list of bad habits drinking one or two glasses of wine. And this is something I agree with and I think most of the data shows. There is actually some data that starts saying that two like to might be like a tipping point. I would literally stick to maybe two once a week. If that’s your Friday or Saturday night and you’re with friends and you’re out at a restaurant, that’s cool, and it’s just every now and then. If it’s kind of a daily thing, then I would stick to one glass of wine. And a glass being like 4 ounces.

Tim:Yeah, I’d say 4 or 5 ounces, right.

Shawn:And keeping it to dryer reds is a much better way to go. They’re low in sugar, they’re much higher in these polyphenol antioxidant compounds, and they’re higher in resveratrol, and these things that are anti-aging. So, if you’re doing it for health purposes, then I would lower the sugar and I would boost the antioxidants. And so I would have maybe 4 ounces of red wine. And if you’re sipping it through the course of an hour of sitting down and having dinner, it’s not really going to have some kind of negative health impact or be too much alcohol, or hit you hard, or whatever. But there are studies that show that there’s benefits to having that one drink of any type of alcohol.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:It’s not necessarily that alcohol is bad for you. It’s the amount of alcohol and how quickly you drink that alcohol.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:So, I would keep that in mind. But I would say, of all the alcohols you could have, that the dry red wine with a meal makes the most sense to me.

Tim:Yeah, I was just going to say that the red wine usually gets the spotlight, and rightly so, because of the polyphenols, antioxidants, like resveratrol certainly is one of them. Malvidin’s another one in red wine that’s important. But alcohol itself probably has some health benefits in terms of improving vasodilation. So, health benefits including heart health, glycemic control, and things like that.

And let me just clarify that 1 to 2 glasses per day cannot be averaged out as 10 drinks in one night. [chuckles] So, binge-drinking certainly violates the health properties here. Like you said, Shawn, once you get past that two drink type of limit, then things start becoming inflammatory.

Shawn:Yeah.

Tim:So, it’s important to point that out.

Shawn:Yeah, no, that’s a great point. Yeah, definitely binge drinking is out. So, this is an interesting one. I don’t know if you knew this, but you talked about this earlier, next up on the list of bad habits is having your notifications turned on. I’ll read this. This is actually interesting because it says, “At Google’s recent Google I/O [which means like input/output when you’re talking about tech] Developer Conference, the company unveiled the host of features cured at curbing what is often called tech addiction. One was a new feature that offers an easy way to block notifications, which many people say caused anxiety and curbed productivity,” which you just pointed out. And we can have that dopamine addiction when these things come up. Or like there’s anxiety even, like when you see things come up and you keep scrolling them away and more come up, and then you scroll them away and you just never get productive.

But it says, “But there are no studies suggesting that snoozing notifications will help us feel better.” I would disagree to some degree, like we just talked about. I think it’s just common sense. But this is an interesting point. “In fact, when researchers attempted to solve the anxiety problem by muting them completely, as they did in a recent study, it actually led to people to report feeling more stressed, not less.” Now, this is people that are still in, I’d say, the addiction phase here. “But there may be a better alternative,” and I like this a lot. “People in the study who got their alerts sent in batches, as opposed to real-time,” which is called push notifications, if you want to look that up on your phones and how to do those settings. I know I have a Google phone and on the new operating systems you can customize how you get your notifications for each and every app; whether they’re push, whether they’re batched. So, you can tailor all this stuff. But anyway, “…as opposed to real-time, said they felt less stressed and happier than people who got them normally or didn’t get them at all.”

And I think this makes sense because I’ve done this I have actually silenced my phone for a few days and I actually did feel somewhat better. But then when I turned it back on and it exploded, I was very overwhelmed and I felt very anxious. Like it felt good when I was off. I didn’t even think about, “I guess I’m not getting stuff and I guess I’m good,” but then when it exploded, it was it was very overwhelming and very stress‑inducing. So, I like this idea, again, like we were talking about with social networking, that doing things in batches. And we’re going to probably keep saying that with productivity, makes a lot of sense.

Tim:I agree, Shawn. And I think that goes for email too.

Shawn:Yeah.

Tim:This is just my personal experience. Like if I had the ding on the email, then I would either immediately stop doing what I was doing and go check to see what it was, or if I tried to continue doing what I was doing, I would be distracted wondering what it was. So, I think that’s one thing one. That’s why I don’t like the idea of having any kind of notification of when things come in. A lot of times, if I’m writing out doing a project like that, I’ll actually either shut down email completely or work offline so there’s no distractions at all. And I think the other thing there was that I was going to mention as far as the notifications was that I forgot.

Shawn:Well, there’s machine learning now, too, which is kind of a nice term for artificial intelligence, which people don’t like to hear. But I know, again, when I use my Gmail there’s kind of a new feature that it senses what’s important versus like Outlook doesn’t do this, as far as I know. But like my Gmail puts like the really important ones and it filters them through. So I don’t get 98% of my emails, but it knows if it’s these 10 people, then it will let those ones through, and it knows those are important and you need to see those.

I would say most people are overwhelmed with technology, and they think it’s so time-consuming. But this is one of those things, if you can go in and play with your important contacts list and play with your notification settings, it could be very valuable to your mind state.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:Because now you’ll only get five emails that’ll come through in your notifications a day, and they’re five really important ones, versus getting 100 emails. And you’ll only get notifications of the apps that really matter, not ones that are just marketing to you in push form. And you’ll get them batched, like say at like 2:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., and then that’s cool, right?

So, I agree with this. Now that I’ve read through it, I would say that if you manage it correctly and in a way that’s logical, getting your information. It’s kind of like having your executive assistant say, “Hey Shawn, you’ve got these four important emails to check and there’s two comments that came up on social media where someone asked a question of you about this article, and they’re trying to connect with you and they’ve always been good people to you in the past, and you have a good relationship with them. Maybe you can answer those things.” And they check in with me at 2:00 p.m. and they tell me this.

Tim: Yeah.

Shawn: Like, “Hey, check your social media, check your email.” Like okay, cool. I’ll knock that out over the next 30 minutes. I’ll check this email and I’ll check social media and I’ll do that and I’ll go back to doing whatever I was doing and being productive at that. But instead of getting these things piecemeal throughout the day, where you’re constantly distracted, obviously that’s not the healthiest thing. So, you can set these things up, and I would encourage you to do so.

Tim:Just one final point there, Shawn. If you do decide to make a change like that, give it some time to see how you adapt to it. So, if after one day if you like, “That’s just not going to work for me. I just can’t do it.” You’ve got to give yourself a little bit of time because you’re changing a complete new habit, basically. It’s like if you were to move the furniture around your house, you might go back to where the chair used to be and try to sit down. Well, you’re not going to like move the chair right back. You’re going to give it some time and you’re going to adjust. That’s why maybe these people in the study felt that anxiety when they weren’t getting notifications. They’re like, “I’m used to getting it, so I’m thinking about it.” So, give it some time. Just see how you adapt to it.

Shawn:Yeah, exactly. Forgoing a long workout is number 9 on the list of bad habits. You don’t always need to commit to sweating for hours at the gym to stay in shape. Tim, tell us. HIIT us. [laughs]

Tim:Yeah, nice. Pun intended. [laughs] Shawn’s referring to High-Intensity Interval Training there with the HIIT acronym there. And yeah, it’s very clear now that we know that we can get very similar benefits, cardiovascular benefits, and metabolic benefits from doing short, more intense exercise sessions. High-Intensity Interval Training, basically where you alternate periods of very hard work. Like say on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the hardest, somewhere in that 8 to 10 range. Anywhere from 10 to 20 seconds to 2 minutes, interspersed with periods of rest or active recovery, where you’re doing very low-intensity or even sometimes no activity.

And there’s a there’s some references on the blog where I can link to, to elaborate on this, but basically a 10 to 20 minute workout like that can be equivalent to the same.

Shawn:Of course.

Tim:Yeah, 150 minutes of weekly exercise, of that Slow Go Cardio. Not to say that Slow Go Cardio is inherently bad, it’s just not time-efficient and optimal for everyone, and it may be counterproductive for some people.

Shawn:Right, exactly. And yeah, if you’re someone who likes to get on the bike or go jog or walk or whatever, those things can be good things. Especially if you’re outside, if you’re thinking, you’re breathing, you’re moving. Those things can be positive things. I just don’t get that some people are at the gym just for like an hour-and-a-half. And it’s like why are you like inside on the treadmill? I mean, it’s good that you’re moving. It’s good to keep the body moving and you are burning some calories, but man, if you really look into the research, I could I could do more for you in 10 minutes than you’re doing in easily an hour.

Tim:Yeah.

Shawn:If you just follow the research and get a trainer. Get someone who knows what they’re doing. You can train this way. It’s not just like people think of like HIIT as like stuff on the treadmill or the stair-stepper or whatever, sprints and all that stuff. That does work, but you can also train this way with resistance exercise and incorporate that in, in kind of this HIIT style.

Tim:Yeah.

Shawn:Kind of like circuit training style.

Tim:I maybe go to the gym 3-4 times a week now. And on the days that I don’t go to the gym, I’ll do bodyweight workouts that style. So, I’ll do 20 seconds of an exercise, take a 10-second break, and do 20 seconds of another exercise, and do that for 8, 10, 12 minutes or something like that. Or there’s another 7-minute workout, Scientific 7‑Minute Workout. It was in the New York Times, and it’s 30 seconds of an exercise and then 10 seconds off. And again, these are just bodyweight exercises, so very convenient.

I will say that I think that some of the benefits of interval training can be overstated, like the metabolic boost. It’s real. You do get an increase in energy expenditure after exercise, but it’s not to the extent that some people might point out. But you can get the same weight loss benefits from interval training that you would from Slow Go Cardio, if not better, because you tend to retain more muscle mass.

And then I will say, finally on this topic, do one or the other or both. Regardless of what you do, do some type of cardiorespiratory exercise.

Shawn:I agree.

Tim:Because that’s probably one of the most strongly-associated variables with health and longevity. So, do one or the other or both.

Shawn:Well, I think also it’s a good habit. Not just the habit of exercise itself, but committing to yourself daily.

Tim:Yeah, yeah.

Shawn:Like showing up. One of the biggest things you hear about success is showing up.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:Most people are like, “Nah, you know, I’m tired. I’ll just get it tomorrow.” But man, like if you’re consistent about a habit that’s positive for yourself, that in and of itself is having huge repercussions for empowering you to make good decisions.

Tim:Awesome.

Shawn:That would have a number of repercussions through it, like ripples throughout the ponds, so to speak. That you’ll start making other positive decisions for yourself. You’ve empowered yourself, you’re constructing yourself to be a better person, and you’re committed to it. So, the people that show up every day, that’s a big thing. Especially like when your schedule goes a little haywire and you’re out on the road or you’re traveling. Man, if you can stick to something then. It doesn’t have to be, again, the same thing, it’s something. If you’re committed to something, that’s huge. Give yourself a pat on the back.

Tim:That’s an awesome point, Shawn. Very good.

Shawn:Thanks. Okay, number 10 on the list of bad habits Eating gluten. [laughs] What do you think? This is a kind of controversial one. You know, there’s a lot of people that say this gluten stuff is way overstated and gluten isn’t that bad for you. And then I read a lot of articles that say kind of the opposite, that yes there’s people that often aren’t celiac, but there’s a lot of non‑celiac gluten sensitivity and CGS people out there that get depression. And this has been shown in clinical studies. They get depression, brain fog, they get agitated sleep, they get a number of things that seem to be related to inflammation, systemically. So, gluten, thoughts on that?

Tim:Yeah, great point, Shawn. And to that point, definitely there’s evidence there that non-celiac gluten sensitivity is real. It is probably overstated, I think self-reported. If you took up a survey out there of just 100 people, you might get like 40 or 50% of people that say it. But probably the best data that we have is probably somewhere around 3%, maybe 5% of the population.

And like you said, these are not just like GI-related symptoms, they’re extra-intestinal, meaning like brain, mood, skin, and things like that. And maybe it’s tied to a leaky gut kind of thing. I know Dr. Fasano has done a lot of research on gluten sensitivity, and he’s basically saying that gluten can separate the junctions in the intestinal cells and cause leaky gut, even in healthy people.

Shawn:The Tight Junction.

Tim:Yeah, exactly. So, it’s an issue. There’s other things in wheat that may also be problematic. These fermentable carbohydrates called FODMAPs, maybe that’s part of the problem. There’s trypsin inhibitors, which inhibit the body’s enzymes to break down certain proteins, so maybe that’s at play for some people.

Shawn:And there’s some people’s that say that our wheat—going back to the processed stuff—I know when I was in Sardinia and I had like that whole hearty wheat and I actually had bread and I had pasta there, and it was just so different. It was just more filling, more al dente. Just truly hearty. And I was like, “Man, this is really satisfying instead of feeling like sugary goo.” Like normally the bread I eat at a restaurant or like the pasta, if I was to have pasta here. It was so different. And I’ve heard that our wheat is different. Isn’t our wheat often treated with Roundup?

Tim:Roundup, glyphosate. Yeah.

Shawn:Yeah, glyphosate. So, any thoughts on that?

Tim:Yeah, it’s interesting that you bring that up too because Dr. Steven Gundry talks a lot about lectins, and maybe lectins here, the way the wheat is grow, maybe it’s higher in lectins. And he actually says that if you actually look at the way wheat is consumed in other cultures, they actually remove the bran. And so it’s not really like a whole wheat, because a lot of the lectins are found in that shell. Yeah, it’s just like with rice. Asian cultures don’t eat brown rice. They white rice, because they probably knew what they were doing. They were removing some of those lectins. He argues that lectins may have some of that same leaky gut type of effect, so maybe that’s at play there.

And like you said, certainly there’s a lot of discussion about the glyphosate having some issues, too. I like that you mentioned wheat, because we don’t eat gluten, we eat gluten-containing foods. I think it’s important to realize that not everyone is sensitive to gluten. You have to pay attention to your body’s individual responses. Low FODMAP diet does tend to be very helpful. About 3 out of 4 people who have IBS, it tends to be a FODMAP-related issue as opposed to just a gluten thing.

Shawn:That’s Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Tim:Sorry, yeah, Irritable Bowel Syndrome. So, if you feel like your gut is just very sensitive to these things, then it may be a good idea to get tested and to remove things like gluten and FODMAPs, whatever. But you may not have to have those things removed forever.

Shawn:Right.

Tim:So, gluten free—unless you’re celiac—gluten free, a low FODMAP diet, these types of things are experiments in the sense that they’re like elimination diets. And after the inflammation calms down and you start to feel better, it’s actually a good idea to reintroduce these things, to see what your level of tolerance really is. And then you can identify if we’re talking about gluten specifically. Okay, like I can eat this, a piece of bread, and I don’t have any problems. But if I have it five days in a row or something like that, maybe it’s problematic. So, just assessing your tolerance after you get the storm to calm down a little bit, I think is a good idea.

I think the other point I’m trying to make there, too, is that gluten is probably not the evil or the devil that everyone thinks it is. It’s probably not the only thing out there that could be problematic.

Shawn:Right. It could be an issue, to your point. Like let’s say if you’re drinking heavily, if you’re not getting enough sleep, if you have a lot of stress in your life.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:If you have all these things that are kind of inflammatory and triggers, then maybe gluten exacerbates that.

Tim:Yeah.

Shawn:But to your point, if you’re getting good sleep, if you don’t have as much stress, if you’re eating a certain way and you’re not drinking a ton of alcohol, and all these things, then maybe it isn’t an issue.

Tim:Yeah, that’s a great way to sum it up. I think this is the last one.

Shawn:Let’s see. This is the last one. This is taking—

Tim:Hopefully you haven’t taken a nap during this episode. [laughs]

Shawn:Last but certainly not least on the list of bad habits is Taking a nap. What do you think? I’m a proponent of this. I wish I could do it better, but I’m not a good napper. I’m jealous of people that can do the siesta thing, but it certainly seems healthy to me to pull that off. And there’s even some people, like primal style, that believe in the diurnal, right?

Tim:Biphasic sleep?

Shawn:Okay, biphasic sleep. So yeah, what are your thoughts on napping and it being one of those bad habits?

Tim:Yeah, it seems like it’s a healthy practice. I probably could. If I laid down, I probably could take a nap. But it’s just not something that I’ve worked into my day. It’s not part of my routine right now. [laughs] But in general, like we had Ben Greenfield on the show before and he talks a lot about taking a nap. Aubrey Marcus and most of the people that are really keen on human optimization seem to be waving these in, and it seems like it’s a beneficial thing overall.

Shawn:And it’s really not that much time.

Tim:Right.

Shawn:We’re not talking about hours. Like some of these are people it’s as short as like 10 minutes or something. But yeah, 30 minutes maybe being the max, and they seem to get benefit.

Tim:I’m going to tie in the coffee to this one, too. Dr. Michael Breus is known as the sleep doctor, and he talks about a “nap-a-latte.” And so what a nap-a-latte is, it’s a nap combined with the coffee. So, you basically drink a cup of coffee or a shot of espresso and then immediately try to go lay down and take a nap. I know it sounds kind of weird but what happens is it allows you to rest without getting into a deep sleep. And so you wake up a feeling refreshed, but not that groggy way that you might feel if you woke up after 15-20 minutes and were just starting to get into a sleep cycle or something like that.

Shawn:Fascinating.

Tim:Yeah, he recommends that. Because what caffeine actually does is it blocks sleep. It binds to something called the adenosine receptor, and so it blocks the body’s sleep chemicals. Anyway, I thought that was really interesting when I heard that. I haven’t experimented with it, but I’ve heard people talk about it and they swear by it. They wake up feeling refreshed, more creative, and things like that. And some people would talk about different length of naps, depending on how you want to feel.

Shawn:Which REM state you’d get into.

Tim:Yeah. So, if want to wake up feeling more creative, it’s maybe a shorter nap; if you want to wake up feeling ready to go workout, maybe it’s a little bit longer nap or something like that. So, different lengths of naps might have different effects. And again, personal preferences and individual differences apply, so kind of experiment with it.

Shawn:Seems fun. Well, that wraps up our list of bad habits and we’re going to do another list that’s kind of the inverse of this list. So, we really appreciate the BioTrust fam, the Nation following us. And you can go to BioTrustRadio.com to get all the show notes. And we have all the links and cool stuff. And if you’re listening to us on Google Play, Stitcher, and iTunes, we appreciate it. Certainly subscribe and download the episodes. You can listen to them offline and you can get notified [laughs] when they come in. Again, we really appreciate you. There’s a BioTrust.com/blog if you want to check out the blog articles that Tim has talked a lot about and has written quite a few of. And then we have our VIP Facebook area that has a really awesome community where you can have some accountability and really contribute and connect. And that is BioTrust.com/VIP.

Tim:Yeah, that’s right.

Shawn: So, again, we appreciate you and we look forward to hearing from you soon, and hopefully you’ll want to hear from us soon. So, thanks everyone. Talk to you soon.

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